CPEC is exemplary model of cross-regional cooperation: Maleeha Lodhi

NEW YORK: At the UN, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi cited the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as an exemplary model of cross-regional cooperation.
Speaking in the open debate of the Security Council on Cooperation between the UN and regional organizations on maintaining peace and security, she said, “The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project, launched by President Xi Jinping of China, is a significant example of the way in which cross-regional cooperation can be promoted in an inclusive and practical way”.
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is a major component of this visionary and ambitious enterprise.
Referring to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Pakistani envoy to the UN said this also holds out the promise of mutually beneficial regional cooperation. “With its current membership and observers, the organization represents half the global population”. She pointed out.
“SCO plays a useful role in promoting cooperative and collective security in the Eurasian region, especially in countering terrorism and extremism, as well as fighting drugs and crime”. She added.
Ambassador Lodhi said that in June 2016, Pakistan signed a Memorandum with the SCO, paving the way for the country’s full membership of the Organization. “My country hopes to benefit from this membership, as we firmly believe in the value of finding regional solutions through regional cooperation”, she added.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative also told the 15-member Security Council that today’s “multipolar world is more free and vibrant, yet more chaotic and turbulent.”
Poverty, she stressed remained widespread, violations of human rights were rampant, situations of foreign occupation persisted, violent extremism and terrorism have assumed dangerous new forms and the global refugee crisis had acquired unprecedented proportions.
Ambassador Lodhi told the Council that “One of the tragic ironies of our age is that we are witnessing unprecedented human suffering at a time when spectacular advances in human progress are being made possible by the technological and scientific breakthroughs of our era.”
“New and complex conflicts were emerging while older and unresolved disputes continued to fester”, the Pakistani envoy said, adding that the international order established after the Second World War was falling apart, but a new order had yet to emerge.
While the United Nations remained indispensable, Ambassador Lodhi said it faced the imposing task of dealing simultaneously with a variety of opportunities and challenges. It could therefore benefit from enhanced cooperation with regional and subregional intergovernmental organizations.
In this regard she said that since 2010, the SCO has been cooperating regularly with the UN in the fields of prevention and resolution of conflicts, counter-terrorism through its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure, and countering transnational crime and illegal drugs.
She called for enhanced dialogue and cooperation between the UN and the SCO, as both organizations shared the same purposes and principles.
She concluded by pointing out that the United Nations provides the umbrella under which regional organizations can promote cooperation with each other in advancing their objectives of peace, stability and prosperity.